UIS - NO ONE ON THE CORNER HAS SWAGGER LIKE JAY-B!

With the release of their new single which has been topping the charts the past couple of weeks. I would have to say that I'm f****** pumped for the release of the new Black Eyed Pea's CD titled The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies) . It's so cool. I've been a big fan of the Black Eyed Peas since I can remember. Elephunk was the shiz, Monkey Business was the shiz x2, and I have a huge feeling that The E.N.D. is going to be amazing. From "Where Is the Love?," to "My Humps," and now "Boom Boom Pow!"

Everyone it told that college is supposed to be the best four years of our life, however, I feel that I'm having a little bit of difficulty enjoying college and spending time with my friends with all of this homework and studying getting in the way. Here's a typical day for myself:

1) Wake up @ 8:30 (grab your brush and put a little make-up....for you S.O.A.D. junkies)
2) Class @ 10am until 11:15pm
3) Class @ 12pm until 1:15pm
4) Class @ 2pm until 3:15pm
5) Lunch Break con mis amigos
6) Class @ 5pm until 6:15pm
7) Work out @ 7pm until 9pm
8) Study for the rest of the night and do my RA thang at the same time.



Yeah....I'm still trying to figure out how Dick Grayson was able to balance school work/college classes and fighting crime at night, because I'm literally drained of ATP (adenosinetriphosphate) by the end of the day to where I can barely concentrate. Fortunately I'm doing very well in my classes. The line up for classes consists of:

1) Human Physiology
2) Comparative Vertebrate Biology & Anatomy
3) Principles of Inorganic Chemistry (my favorite class....hint the sarcasm)
4) Survey of African American Literature

But, the best thing about college & UIS for the most part is the friendships that will bond (a covalent bond to be exact) during your struggle to succeed in the class. For example, I have Pavan to goof around with and study for Human Physiology.


One thing that I love about studying with or just having any class with Pavan, we'll always make a promise with each other that we'll start studying for exams the week before....and it ends up being the night before and us staying up until 7 in the morning studying. Yeah.....we're going to be doctors.

For Comparative Vert, I get the pleasure of studying with Angie Davis. Our studying consists of us freaking out abot the material and generating these weird premonitions that we're going to fail the exam when we actually end up passing it with flying colors. I'll have to say that we're pretty creative when it comes to making up cheers or dances to remember stuff....and then do them in class....DURING THE TEST! (more so me)


Finally, I have my favorite people to study or do homework with for Principles of Inorganic Chemistry. I get to study for exams with Marksies and Premalama Babuhead, by study meaning we do everything possible not to study. And who could forget Brittney Meyer, my partner in crime whom I share/come up with every possible catch-phrase or funny slogan. Let's just say, when it comes to studying, our friendship is tighter than intermolecular forces.....man I'm a nerd!




(Marksies is on the left.....he dips in chocolate!)



I miss studying with you guys.....

I went to the movies and someone asked me if I was one of those black people that scream at the movies yelling stuff like "Girl...don't go in there!" I replied yes, because white people in the movie always go in the room that the killer is in....he's behind the door! @LOL

Hello World,

I'm finally back to blogging after my extended hiatus from the internet. Let's just say that a lot has happened within the past couple of weeks (months for that matter), so the next couple of blogs will be your chance to catch up on the latest additions to the "E! True Hollywood Story" of my life....not so much. So, what better way to start catch-up blogs better than the best holiday of a college student: SPRING BREAK!

Spring Break is a pivotal point in a college student's career where he/she gets to let loose for an entire week. Imagine this, a year worth of partying and having fun that has been suppressed by the endless amounts of papers/studying/homework that professors love to throw at our faces that's on the brink of explosion. However, in order to experience Spring Break to its fullest extent, you must have all of the following steps to be completed:

1) Completion of homework and all studies so that nothing educational will intervene with "funage"



2) A group of friends that you are 1000% (on the Maury Povich Scale) sure will be as idiotic as you are.



3) The final step is to have an exotic and warm location to enjoy this break with your amigos/amigas



(Notice that there are no palm trees in of all places Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.)

Yes, we decided to "vacay (as the youngsters likes to coin the term vacation)" in Wisconsin Dells. However, even though we decided to go North, meaning that birds are now smarter than us in regards to travel plans, we still had a blast. First off, on the roster for this little shindig consisted of Pavan Ganapathiraju, Priyanka Deo, Craig Jason-Michael Rebou, Christie Yopst, Vicky Yopst, and myself.....yeah, so there was a good brown:white ratio going on here. We stayed at the Chula Vista resort, which is a nice/amazing resort that was conveniently established on top of an old Indian Reservation. I said that because when we arrived, it was below 50 (followed by snowfall) and I made a joke about the girls walking the Trail of Tears to walk to the front entrance because they parked so far away from the hotel. Second, the Hotel had a Hot Tub.......oh budday! Yeah....mostly the guys spent their time talking about their issues and emotional/traumatic events that plagued their lives....we also did our nails too. This is the part where I tell you I'm being sarcastic. The girls had their own beds and bathrooms, and the guys had there own king size bed to share.....yeah someone definitely ripped one the minute we were under the covers, yet we looked past that , and it was a lot of fun. Third, indoor water park. Most of the vacation took place in this wonderous aquatic environment because it gave us the chance to relieve all of our stress by beating out little 7 year-olds to the front of the line for the water slides. There was this one water slide that took you inside this giant donut that had flashing lights and crazy LSD/PCP drug lights. The worst part about that was that I went on it with Priyanka.....yeah, she's nuts, and we yelled Pumpkin Fest down the slide.

Yeah, here are a couple more pictures from being in the water park.....it was loads of fun!






(Craig smiles awkward.....and has junk in the trunk)

We also went miniature golfing and we found out that none of us has the capabilities of beating Tiger Woods even if we practiced for several (hundred) years. Yeah, especially Priyanka who managed to hit the ball out of the course on every single one. But we managed to take a picture with a pirate statue. That's always a plus.



However, the best part of the whole trip was that we got to go to this arcade and we definitely got our money's worth of prizes. Have you ever been to an amusement park and you saw grown adults walking in the place holding like a billion tickets.....for the first time, we were those people. I played a ski ball game and I only knocked down one pin, while the kid next to me knocked down like 7. Though I knocked down 1, my machine malfunctioned and gave me a shiz-ton of tickets. So....I decided to show Priyanka and Pavan the machine that broke down, they put in the coin, and the tickets came out. Like 1000+ tickets, we didn't have enought room in our pockets, so Priyanka had to empty out her purse and and walk around with a bunch of tickets in her purse. Craig won like 5, so he definitely contributed.


Yeah...and this is what we looked like carrying around all of the tickets we "won."



Yeah, with our combined tickets, we hadd 1000+ and we were able to buy the following:

1) Six Silly Hats
2) 2 Dart Boards
3) One Cheerleader Wand
4) A bunch of candy
5) Six Weird balls

However, number 5 on the list we didn't purchase at the prize counter, I wond all of those in a row at those Grab-Claw Machines. I've never played those games before, but I won six in a row!



It was sad to see the trip come to a close, however, it was great to reconnect with my friends and strengthen our relationship, because at that time, I realized that the time that I had to spend with them was very limited because Craig was graduating and we would soon graduate after the year. It was an amazing trip....and the best SPRING BREAK EVER!

My friend Dustin Rickman (a.k.a. D-Rick), came up with a brilliant idea at the beginning of March...because most of his ideas suck. He thought it would be a good idea for the guys to get off campus and hang out because this year has been insane. I'd say that 90% of the academic year consisted of me intensively studying for exams and projects. The other 10% was consumed by work. So, D-Rick created a facebook group about the event....when he only invited 4 people (an e-mail would've sufficed). So, the power players for the evening consisted of: Dustin Rickman (D-Rick), Pavan Ganapathiraju (Brown Ninja), Criag Rebou (Boo), Michael Stephens (Mikey), and myself (JB).

Our friend of Pavan and I's, Anton (TJ) Grasch was supposed to come with us to hang out because we've missed him dearly, however, he gave me a call letting us know that he was going to ditch us for an impromptu vacation to Paris! WTF? I'm pretty sure he had fun, but it's just hilarious that doors just opens for this kid, it's ridiculous. The date was set March 6th, 2009 (3/6/9). Every time we kept saying the date, we kept singing that song by Lil' Jon and the East Side Boys, which there's nothing wrong with that. But, the plan was to go out ot dinner, and catch the release of "The Watchmen." We came to the consensus that we were more excited to see the movie because it was supposed to be the biggest movie of 2009. We figured since the graphic novel was good and was declared 14 of the top 25 novels, the movie was bound to be badass.

We couldn't decide where to go for dinner, so the first hour consisted of us figuring out where to go, because everyone had a grudge against the restaurant that was shouted out. We finally decided on Buffalo Wild Wings since Pavan and I have never been there. That place is the "shiz," there were t.v. screens in the stalls, nothing like going onsies and watching "Sports Center" at the same time. I had this platter that was called crazy chicken, and I picked the hottest sauce to dip the chicken strips in....best dish ever. There was also this trivia game that you got to play where you had to know Trivia from the winnings of the Academy Awars. We got to 4th place in the rankings, but this guy named Weenis was pissing us off by getting every answer correct. We dream big, so our goal was to get to first place.

After Dinner, we went to a late showing of "The Watchmen." The story takes place in an alternate time line in which masked, costumed vigilantes fight crime in America. In the 1930s and 40s, the vigilantes form a group called the Minutemen. Decades later, a second generation of superheroes attempt to form a team as well, calling themselves the Watchmen. Various historical events are shown to have been altered or impacted by the existence of superheroes, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War. The American victory in the Vietnam War, due to the intervention of the godlike being Dr. Manhattan, leads to Richard Nixon's third term as President following the repeal of term limits in the United States. By the 1980s, however, the Watchmen have been outlawed, and tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union have escalated the Cold War with threats of nuclear attack. The characters are pretty cool, they're in the DC Comic universe and some of them bare a striking resemblance to certain DC Characters. Unfortunately, I didn't care for the movie too much, which is a general reaction for someone like me because I haven't read the novel yet. Word on the street is that if you read the graphic novel first and then see the movie, you'll appreciate it a lot more, however, I didn't, so I just though it was okay. I felt that there was too much political mumbo jumbo that was thrown into the world. My reaction to the movie is that I feel like I payed $8.25 for a physics lecture opposed to an action movie (which is what the general public was promised). The action sceens were great, and as many action scenes, there was an equivalence in the amount of sex scenes, especially with the character Dr. Manhattan who is portrayed as a "God-like" figure. He can do anything, however I felt that the film focused more on him being in the nude and swinging blue pipe for 3 hours. The movie is a beautifully wrapped package with a cheap toy in it.

Here's the question of the hour: Have you ever wanted to get back at someone so bad that you'd be willing to pay money to do so? Now, let's re-work that question to make it more suitable for a college student: Are you willing to pay money to get the revenge that you so desperately seek on your R.A.? Well, fortunately, the residents of Lincoln Residence Hall and Founders Hall of the University of Illinois at Springfield got the chance to seek revenge on their RA's February 23rd.

I overheard a resident talking to some friends that they'd be willing to pay money to prank their RA for writing them up. I heard this statement and utilized it as the opportunity to establish my Civil Service program. As an RA, we're required to put on a certain amount of programs that need to fit a criteria, I won't go into details about programming....that's for another day, however, I decided to create a Civil Service Program to raise money to donate to the Big Brothers Big Sisters Foundation, the program was titled: Bullseye.

For the advertisement of the program, each Resident Assistant from different wings of the neighboring residence halls provide me with a picture (meaning I facebook creeped a picture from them) and I placed a bullseye over their face, I did the same thing with the Resident Directors of the buildings as well. I took each flyer and posted it on the front desk of the buildings to get the attraction of the residents. Throughout the week, the program generated some Buzz. My friend Brittney Meyer had a different promotional statement for the program, she said "Are you pissed at your RA for doing their job by writing you up for a noise complaint, alcohol violation, or non compliance? Well, you're in luck, so you can get get back at them by paying them a dollar for pissing you off!" I laughed till I went ones-ies on myself (it's a "Scrubs" reference). The prices were $1 to pie any RA of the resident's choice and $4 to pie one of the RD's. I thought they were reasonable prices...for college students that is. On the Monday of the event, words can't even describe as to how amazing the program was, so I took some videos to show you how everything went down.

































So....the only problem about the program was the clean-up of myself. It took me 40 minutes to get all of the whipped cream off of me in the shower, because it also got in my ears too, it was utterly disgusting. However I had fun, plus, it was a great way for my residents to get back at me for all of the trouble I caused them. I think the Kouba, Kubal, and Felix had too much fun, but Becky Zehr was almost in tears from pieing me in the face, not because she felt sad, but because she was so happy get revenge on me from tall of the pranks that I pulled on her. Blake Johnson was the only student to pie Barbara....I didn't see him until two weeks later. The program was a success, we raised $130 dollars, which was pretty good for the prices that we had and I think the residents had a lot of fun. I look forward to more of the programs and more of the zany adventures that go along with the Resident Assistant job. Look out for my next program!

Smallville "Legion"



I'm a huge fan of "Smallville," there's no doubt about it. I didn't watched the series from the pilot episode, but I did catch up around the middle of the 4th season. When I first saw commercials for the premiere of the show, I thought that it was the dumbest idea that former broadcasting corporation, The WB, ever came up with. The story of how I came to enjoy the prime time hit is a rather ironic one. I remember when the promotional commercials for the show premiered when I was into "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," my first reaction to the show was that I thought that it was the must unrealistic and idiotic premise for a show, the life of the "Man of Steel" during his adolescent years and all the drama that goes along with it. With that in mind, I didn't even give it a chance.

Cosmic Boy is a fictional character, a comic book superhero in the DC Comics universe from Legion of Super-Heroes. He has the superhuman ability to control electromagnetic fields. He is a founding member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, along with Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl.



Saturn Girl (original) is a powerful telepath who can cast illusions, cause sedation, stun or kill people mentally with powerful mind bolts, cause physical damage with psionic objects, and even cause paralysis or cause someone to be in a catatonic state. She could block mental intrusions, and manipulate someone into doing her will, just by sheer willpower.


Lightning Lad has the ability to generate electricity and direct bolts of electricity accurately. He is also able to generate and manipulate electricity, he can also apply the electricity internally to his own body and muscles, allowing himself to move at a top speed of one third the speed of light (the speed of lightning) and range anywhere in between that and normal human speed. Lightning Lad can use his power destructively, such as to short-circuit electrical items, split boulders, burn objects with precision or shatter walls.